What is the ideal time to announce your next step from High school to college in baseball. Assuming of course, your sought after. I am seeing many kids sign before senior seasons. What are the different variables? If highly sought after should you not try for the draft, or is it like football when you declare for the draft you become ineligible for college? Speaking as a parent to guide my kid

You can’t sign a Letter of Intent until November of your senior season (actually this week).

You can verbal at any time. The ideal time is when you’ve gotten the right offer from a school that wants you and where you want to go for your education and play baseball. My kid committed in the summer after his sophomore year, because the right school offered. There’s no magic answer.

There is no declaring for the draft in HS. Teams draft you if they want you, in June of your senior year. You then have a choice, go pro or go to college. You don’t have a choice before then or have to give up college eligibility to be drafted.

Advice so far should be very helpful. I’d like to add just a slight bit of thinking to the process.

This subject is like a slam-bam to consider. Like going into a black hole and guessing how things will turn out coming out of said hole. So, I would suggest considering yourself, your son/daughter, both of you, like a marketing strategy for a new product or service. And like any marketing strategy, someone has to want “it” because of an added value to whatever it is the buyer sees filling.

Ask yourselves these questions:

do you know who and what the potential buyer is - college, university, placement group, etc.?
do you have the background on who and what this buyer has attracted in the past?
are your credentials the same, or better, as those holding roster spots currently?
are you placing a “fair” value on yourskills to be truly sought after?
can you distinguish between just being a number, or are you really being sought after for your talent?
have you reviewed the turnover of players that stay with the institution(s) interested in you?
are the institutions interested in you in an area that has a bumper crop of talent - if so, why contact you?
are rosters made up of those players within a fifty (50) mile radius of those institutions contacting you?

Also, are you considering yourself marketable? Are you thinking … “wow, someone wants me to pay ball!” Well, don’t think that way. Why? If you’re good enough to be contacted, someone must see something in you that is needed and wanted. Going into a “contact” with someone(s) that gives you the attitude of… “we’ve got plenty of kids that apply here,” is probably right, BUT, that should tell you how little they, and others, think about the follow up to purpose for contacting you.

Don’t act smug or full-of-it. Just be mindful that contacts have a purpose behind them. You and the party(s) that your corresponding with should be on equal footing and see each other at eye level, not one look up or down at each other.

One last thing, if you really have the talent that is wanted and recognized, keep your thoughts and expressions to yourself. Being known that you’re considering a particular choice over all others can narrow your future prospects. I personally have seen this dash the hopes and good intentions of a lot of eligible talent.

Not too long ago I was in your shoes. I can tell you from experience that you and your son are in for some of the biggest high’s and lows emotionaly. I wrote a post not too long ago that you might want to read “ I’d like to offer some help, been there did it done it “ it kinda highlights in a nut shell our experience.
My best advice though, be patient! Don’t just jump on a offer because it’s there. My son never committed till the summer following his senior year in high school because of he wanted to make sure he/we looked at all options. Make sure the school and program is what he’s looking for. In the post I wrote that my son was recruited by a very good D1 program, but it just wasn’t the right fit for my son at the time.